Territory to exclude slavery, and he does so not because he

says it is right in itself, he does not give any opinion on that, -but because it has been decided by the court; and being decided by the court, he is, and you are, bound to take it in your political action as law,—not that he judges at all of its merits but because a decision of the court is to him a "Thus saith the Lord." He places it on that ground alone, and you will bear in mind that thus committing himself unreservedly to this decision commits him to the next one just as firmly as to this. He did not commit himself on account of the merit or demerit of the decision, but it is a "Thus saith the Lord."

The next decision as much as this will be a "Thus saith the Lord." There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this decision. It is nothing that I point out to him that his great prototype, General Jackson, did not believe in the binding force of decisions.

It is nothing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have said that I have often heard him approve of Jackson's course in disregarding the decision of the Supreme Court pronouncing a national bank constitutional. He says I did not hear him say so. He denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he ought to know better than I; but I will make no question about this thing, though it still seems to me that I heard him say it twenty times.

I will tell him though that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati platform which affirms that Congress cannot charter a national bank in the teeth of that old standing decision that Congress can charter a bank. And I remind him of another piece of history on the question of respect for judicial decisions and it is a piece of Illinois history, belonging to a time when a large party to which Judge Douglas belonged were displeased with a decision of the Supreme Court

of Illinois, because they had decided that a governor could not remove a secretary of state.

You will find the whole story in "Ford's History of Illinois" and I know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he was then in favor of overslaughing that decision by the mode of adding five new judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. Not only so but it ended in the judge's sitting down on the very bench as one of the five new judges to break down the four old ones. It was in this way precisely that he got his title of judge.

Now, when the judge tells me that men appointed condi tionally to sit as members of a court will have to be catechised beforehand upon some subject, I say, "You know, judge: you have tried it." When he says a court of this kind will lose the confidence of all men, will be prostituted and disgraced by such a proceeding, I say, "You know best, judge: you have been through the mill."

But I cannot shake Judge Douglas's teeth loose from the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect) that will hang on when he has once got his teeth fixed, you may cut off a leg or you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I may point out to the judge and say that he is bespattered all over, from the beginning of his political life to the present time, with attacks upon judicial decisions,-I may cut off limb after limb of his public record and strive to wrench from him a single dictum of the court, yet I cannot divert him from it.

He hangs to the last to the Dred Scott decision. These things show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity for which he adheres to this decision and for which he will adhere to all other decisions of the same court. bernian: "Give us something besides Drid Scott."]

[A Hi

Yes; no doubt you want to hear something that don't hurt. Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott decision, one more word and I am done. Henry Clay, my beau-ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble life,— Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation that they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our independence and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return; they must blow out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul and eradicate there the love of liberty; and then, and not till then, could they perpetuate slavery in this country! To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by his example and vast influence, doing that very thing in this community when he says that the negro has nothing in the Declaration of Independence.

Henry Clay plainly understood the contrary. Judge Douglas is going back to the era of our revolution and to the extent of his ability muzzling the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. When he invites any people, willing to have slavery, to establish it he is blowing out the moral lights around us. When he says he cares not whether slavery is voted down or voted up,”—that it is a sacred right of self-government, he is, in my judgment, penetrating the human soul and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty in this American people.

And now I will only say that when, by all these means and appliances, Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing public sentiment to an exact accordance with his own views, -when these vast assemblages shall echo back all these sentiments, when they shall come to repeat his views and to avow his principles and to say all that he says on these mighty questions, then it needs only the formality of the

second Dred Scott decision, which he indorses in advance, to make slavery alike lawful in all the States,-old as well as new, north as well as south.

FAREWELL ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT SPRINGField, illinOIS, FEBRUARY 11, 1861

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Y FRIENDS,-No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place and the kindness of this people I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in him who can go with me and remain with you and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To his care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1860

R. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW CITIZENS OF
NEW YORK,-The facts with which I shall deal

MR

this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty it will be in the mode of pre

senting the facts and the inferences and observations following that presentation.

In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York "Times," Senator Douglas said:

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Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well and even better than we do now."

I fully indorse this and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the enquiry: "What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?”

What is the frame of government under which we live?

The answer must be: "The constitution of the United States." That constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787 (and under which the present government first went into operation), and twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789.

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Who were our fathers that framed the constitution? suppose the "thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present government. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time.

Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated.

I take these "thirty-nine" for the present as being our "fathers who framed the government under which we live."